


Desperate Musings

by Lauryn426



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28723197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauryn426/pseuds/Lauryn426
Summary: Beth reflects on the path she's taken to get where she is; the good, the bad and the ugly.
Relationships: Beth Harmon & Alma Wheatley, Beth Harmon & William Shaibel
Kudos: 8





	Desperate Musings

Beth had always been an oddity. It had been apparent from the moment she’d walked into the orphanage with her name lovingly embroidered on her dress. It was made obvious in her lack of social skills and the way that she hadn’t really made any friends despite living with the other girls. She’d felt a harsh separation from the other girls for the first time when she completed the maths work for the day before most of the other girls had finished the first few questions. She couldn’t help that she was different - she just was.

It had been cemented that she was different when she’d started playing chess with Mr Shaibel. He’d been gruff when he first started teaching her, but it developed into an easy companionship over time. When he’d realised her skill in chess, he began to look at her differently, and Beth had been worried that it was because she was different. Being different had never been a good thing, or had positive outcomes for her before, and she was anxious that this would be another thing ruined by being different. 

She couldn’t have been more wrong - Mr Shaibel had introduced her to Mr Ganz, who in turn introduced her to the world of professional chess, with its tournaments and competitions. It was liberating to play the game she loved so much with so many different people. She felt like she’d found somewhere she finally belonged. It was still easy to feel like an outsider there; she was still an anomaly, but this time it wasn’t anything she did or could change, not that she would if she could. It was that she was a woman, and those were a rarity in the world of chess. 

Beth’s first venture into playing chess, outside of the basement at Methuen, had been the simultaneous matches she’d played. The members of the club she was playing against were so cocky when they saw her - Beth could almost hear them sniggering to themselves that she wasn’t even old enough to go to high school, and the poor girl thinks she can beat us? Yes, the poor girl thinks she can beat you because she can went through Beth’s mind, with no small amount of smugness. Every move she made had made her feel like she was riding a high from one of the vitamins they were given, and the feeling got a little more intense with each move, a little burst of happiness every time she beat someone. She’d ridden the high the entire journey back to Methuen, where it had sharply evaporated when Mrs Deardorff had been waiting at the door. “Did you have fun playing Elizabeth?” It was an anxious question - Mrs Deardorff had no idea how to play chess, or if it even could be fun. She’d seen a few games and they’d always looked so cold and mechanical to her.

“Yes, Mrs Deardorff.” The answer came swiftly. Beth knew that the director of the orphanage thought Beth was strange. Before she’d played chess, it would have disheartened Beth; not because Mrs Deardorff meant a lot to her, it was more that it was another person who saw her as abnormal. And after the incident with the bottle of pills, it seemed everyone in the orphanage thought that. Everyone was too scared to say anything to her. To Beth, it felt like people were too afraid that she’d shatter like glass if they even looked at her. Even Jolene, who usually didn’t censor herself in any way was a bit more cautious with her after that. It was infuriating until Beth found a community of people who still saw her as strange, but in a good way. 

Her life had changed in ways she hadn’t even thought to anticipate when she was adopted. Her adoptive parents had seemed like they wanted a child, but were unsure what to do now that they had one. Like a dog that had finally caught its tail. For all that Mrs Wheatley said that it was Mr Wheatley that had wanted to adopt, he could have been at least a little involved in Beth’s life. There was the same disconnect between Beth and Mr and Mrs Wheatley that there had been with everyone else she’d met. Mrs Deardorff insisted that after they were adopted, their lives would get so much better but Beth couldn’t help but feel that this was something the director was wrong about.

It wasn’t worse than the orphanage in some aspects but in others, it couldn’t compare to Methuen. Beth would never complain about having her own bedroom - something that she only had fuzzy memories of with her mother, but they moved around a lot so Beth couldn’t be certain that she had at any point in her life had her very own bedroom. The Wheatley’s were much less strict caretakers than the staff at the orphanage, and sometimes scarcely seemed to remember that they had a child. The freedom felt so foreign compared to the controlled timetable for every day at Methuen. The few things that Beth missed about Methuen were the two friends that she’d managed to make there; Jolene and Mr Shaibel. She missed the ease of playing chess and the availability of the tattered chess set. 

Sure, she could play on her ceiling but it just wasn’t the same as playing a real board, against a real partner. She’d held out some hope that the high school she was now enrolled in would have a chess club she could join, only to be sorely disappointed when she’d looked. School was difficult for her; it was such an overwhelming change. There were more people in some of her classes than there were in the orphanage and she always felt crowded. Beth hadn’t made any friends in the time she attended school, but that wasn’t a surprise to her. The subjects were more complex than what they were taught at Methuen and this was a challenge that Beth welcomed. It was nice to not be bored in every lesson and have the teachers lecture them by reciting the textbook. 

Overall Beth felt emptier than she had after her mother had died. The Wheatley’s were struggling with money, and the two things that Beth had developed an interest in were too expensive for the Wheatley’s to indulge, if they’d cared to ask. After the first week of school, Beth had gotten tired of the snide looks and giggles hidden behind hands because she wore the same clothes every day. It hadn’t even occurred to Mrs Wheatley that Beth might need more than one change of clothes. At least at the orphanage, they had always had clean clothes and access to entertainment. All the girls there had guessed that some of the practices there were questionable, after hearing that the vitamins were actually tranquilisers and illegal to give to them, but there wasn’t a girl there who felt as neglected as Beth did in her new family.

It didn’t get better over time, as Mrs Deardorff had promised when she’d asked Beth to come to her office. She’d explained that there was an adjustment period for everyone to get settled into a family, and then promised that after that, they would be the happiest they’d ever been. Mrs Wheatley had sent her to pick up her prescription and had told Beth that the money left over was hers to do want she wanted with. It wasn’t the first time that Beth had been sent on an errand, and ever since she’d seen that the small shop stocked it she had been determined to read the chess magazine. The owner was stubborn and wouldn’t allow her to just read it in the shop, but she didn’t have enough money. She bought a newspaper instead. 

It would turn out to be her salvation.

There was a chess tournament advertised in it. Beth needed to go but knew the Wheatley’s couldn’t afford it. They wouldn’t let her get a job and she felt like screaming. Her first opportunity to play chess in months, and she couldn’t do it? Her mind whirled until it settled on the man who’d supported her in chess since he’d taught her to play - Mr Shaibel. She felt awfully presumptuous to ask, but she needed the money, and surely he’d understand. It was more a loan than anything; Beth was confident in her abilities to win and hoped that Mr Shaibel was too. 

He was, and she’d never be able to thank Mr Shaibel enough for what he’d done. He hadn’t just taught her to play chess, but opened up a whole new world for her. One where she finally felt connected to people. She had to convince Mrs Wheatley to let her go. It was surprisingly easy - all she had to do was mention the cash prize and it was agreed that she could compete. It wasn’t too far away, so Beth and her adoptive mother had agreed that Beth was fine to go by herself. Beth preferred it that way. Going with Mrs Wheatley would have felt like going with a stranger.

Beth may have felt like she belonged in the world of chess, but many players didn’t. They’d done their best to belittle her by commenting on her age (isn’t she too young to be playing chess? Surely she can’t be any good) as well as her gender. The especially sexist ones sneered at her and spread rumours that she couldn’t play chess, she was cheating, because it was a man’s game. The worst players, not in skill, but in attitude, were the ones who would realise that they were matched with her and start the game with a pitying look because they already knew they’d win and it felt ungentlemanly to beat a woman. She didn’t care about them or what they thought of her. She was here to play chess and no amount of insults and disbelieving looks would deter her. Beth wasn’t deaf to the whispers that she should know better to have tried when she sat down at her first match of the tournament. She wasn’t deaf to the resulting whispers that it was just a one-off, lucky game when she’d thoroughly beaten the man she was playing. There was a particularly loud proclamation that she hadn’t won because she played well, but by the grace of the man she’d played. How dare these assholes assume that she couldn’t play chess just because she was lacking a dick?

It didn’t matter what they thought because no matter their opinions on her, the overseers of the games couldn’t deny that she was winning every game she played. At the end of the weekend, they may not have wanted to admit it, but Beth had won the tournament and qualified for the next one. The pattern repeated for a year or so until the chess world had finally admitted that yes, there was a woman player that seemed to be doing quite well. The numerous trophies and the cut out interviews lying around Beth’s room could easily attest to that. 

Lexington quickly fell in love with the idea that they had a local celebrity among them, which always made Beth feel awkward. She felt like she couldn’t walk to the local shop without being stopped, or pointed at and whispered about. Even when she wasn’t in school, it was eerily reminiscent of the treatment she received there. The behaviour in school changed too and there was finally a chess club established. Beth was invited to every meet up for the chess club and went sometimes. It always ended with people thinking that Beth would be a mentor for them and teach them everything she knew about chess, which she just couldn’t do. She could teach them the basics and the strategies used and the technical terms, but many students grew frustrated when Beth couldn’t teach them her understanding of the game.

Beth’s situation at home changed too. At first, it felt like the Wheatley’s paid more attention to her because they’d realised the money she could bring in. Mrs Wheatley was always more present and supportive than Mr Wheatley was, although Mrs Wheatley always weakly defended that Mr Wheatley was always so busy travelling for work and that it wasn’t that he didn’t care. She turned out to be wrong when Mr Wheatley left for a work trip and didn’t come back. Mrs Wheatley quickly became Alma as their relationship became less formal as they leaned on each other for support.

Alma leaned on Beth to get her through the days, lost as she was in her haze of drinks and pills, and Beth leaned on her support as a guiding figure. Beth secretly also relied on stolen pills from Alma’s prescription and sneaky sips of drinks when she made them. They remained frozen like that for a few months - both of them thinking that surely Alma was who Beth considered her mother, but neither wanted to press the issue. Alma became Mother when Beth had stumbled into the kitchen half asleep and absently said “thank you, Mother” as she’d been passed a cup of coffee.

After that, Beth, and her mother, seemed to be getting better and better every day. She qualified for more selective tournaments and was playing at a professional level; people knew who she was. Beth had been entered into the US Open and she thought she really had a chance at becoming the champion. She wasn’t the only one; her mother had been listening to the radio’s covering of the upcoming matches all morning and had squealed in delight when the commentators had said that Beth would be hard to beat. She was confident in her skills and in her research of the other players. Beth had done her best to research the other players and to figure out their strategies by looking over their past games. The only person she struggled with was Benny Watts, the current national champion, who seemed to keep to himself more than play to the public.

The tournament had been going well until the last match was announced. It was obvious Beth would be playing, she had won all her games, but she’d been so busy that she hadn’t managed to really keep track of the other players. She was going to play Benny Watts, the only player who was a mystery to her. Beth had managed to catch minutes of his gameplay between her own games, and for the first time wondered if she was good enough. He was a phenomenal player from what she’d seen, and the rumours were that he played viciously. When they’d shook hands, and sat at the board he smirked at her. A cocky smirk, like he’d known exactly what move she was going to make.

It put her off balance; she didn’t have a clue what he was going to do. It was unsettling for Beth to feel like she was going to lose the game. She hadn’t lost a match in years - since she was first learning with Mr Shaibel. She absently wondered if this was how the people she played felt. Beth spent what felt like hours analysing every move Benny made, and every potential move she could make in response. It was going to be a long match, and as the thought struck Beth, her confidence dwindled away until she felt like she had as a little girl standing at the doors of the orphanage for the first time.

Benny was an excellent player; the best Beth had played, and maybe even better than Beth. He played with the same swagger he walked with - like he was absolutely sure that he was the best in the room. Beth hated him a little, for being so smug and arrogant. She’d seen her around at other tournaments but before this one, she’d never seen him play. At the other tournaments, he’d probably been going to keep an eye on the competition and the players he’d have to play soon. It was a good tactic, and one Beth thought was certainly coming in useful for him now. She wished that she’d been able to find more of his matches because she really couldn’t figure him out. He’d make a move and she’d think she finally had him where she wanted him and then all it would amount to was her falling into his traps. 

It was enraging in the best way.

The game was almost hypnotic - they played so differently and clashed against each other at every opportunity. Neither seemed to be winning, and it eventually got to the point where neither of them could win. They would need to call a draw and both seemed to be slightly resentful of the fact. It was Benny in the end who offered his hand as a draw, and Beth accepted; they both knew that Benny didn’t have any moves and if he somehow had been able to make one, Beth wouldn’t have any moves left to make either. In the end, neither of them win the tournament individually: it was agreed that they’d be co-champions.

They spent a little time talking after their match. It’s awkward and a little stilted. Both Benny and Beth’s pride is wounded. Benny’s because he expected to win easily, with all the extra research he’d done on Beth, he thought he’d figured her out. But, she was sly and had managed to outmanoeuvre him just enough that he’d had to worry about evading her plays. Beth’s pride was stung because for the first time she’d lost a professional game. She tried to make herself feel better by thinking the game over and seeing that it was the most complex game she’d ever played, maybe ever read about being played. 

Her mother understands how much of a big deal it is for her to have lost the game and broke her winning streak, but doesn’t understand why she plays the game over and over obsessively. Beth tells her it’s for practice, to figure out where she went wrong, for the next tournament. Alma thinks that it’s because there was something different about this one, but that maybe it wasn’t the game - it was the players. Benny Watts, to Alma, was someone that she easily would have been charmed by when she was Beth’s age. She did have to stifle a giggle when she’d first seen him in that ridiculous cowboy hat and with the knife halter strapped to his thigh, but still thought he was attractive enough.

Alma didn’t condone people trying to set their children up for relationships and marriages that they didn’t want - look where it had gotten her. That didn’t mean that she didn’t subtly ask Beth about Benny. The only responses she got were about his gameplay and leading to a spiel about the way his move with the bishop in his game against somebody was genius, and that Beth never would have seen it. Beth could rant about what little she’d been able to find of Benny’s games for hours without even realising it. Perhaps it was no surprise that Alma teased her in the way all mothers did their daughters about their crush.

As the tournament in Mexico grew closer and it became clear who was going to be playing, Beth decided to utilise Benny’s approach of research. She figured that her biggest competition would be the Russians, and resolved to go to night classes and learn Russian. Beth’s Russian may not be the most fluent but she’d be able to understand the Russians now, and that was an advantage that they didn’t know she’d even have. She would do better, this time. Losing one game was bad enough, but there was always the next one, Beth thought.

On the journey to Mexico, Beth was shocked by her mother’s excitement about going. Alma was always excited for the tournaments, Beth knew, but this was something different. Something more. It wasn’t excitement for the tournament, Alma revealed, but excitement to meet her pen pal. Beth was aware that her mother’s life didn’t revolve around chess the way hers did, but she still had a moment of consciousness that her mother was her own person.

Mexico was different than anything they’d experienced before. Beth was glad to see her mother so happy, always floating around their room getting ready to go see Manuel and gossiping about how it was such a beautiful city. Beth was startled to find that she had never seen her mother so truly content as she was there. Alma had even played the piano in front of an audience as Beth had finished a match, something that Beth had never seen before. Alma had confessed that she had never done it before, but something about this city is so magical that she just couldn’t resist. 

Beth could guess what the something was.

Alma and Manuel spent their day’s sightseeing and going on dates, and doing other things that Beth didn’t want to think about, because that was her mother. Beth, on the other hand, spent her days slogging through mentally gruelling matches, often ending the days emptily playing chess over the side of the bath, trying to relax. She didn’t always succeed, and those were the days she went out in search of a drink or a smoke.

It was easy to lose herself in those vices; it was a different kind of losing herself that she found in chess. With chess, Beth lost herself in the game as it became her world and the only thing she thought about. Every game must come to an end, so her distraction was only temporary. With drinking and smoking it was easy for Beth to find something else, even something small or stupid to think about for a few hours, until she sobered up. 

Getting drinks in Mexico was a lot easier than it had ever been in the US. Beth couldn’t help but be thankful for it, because something about this tournament felt different. Maybe it was because her mother wasn’t there the way it felt like she always had been, maybe it was because Beth was coming back off her first loss. It was just different. The games were more difficult than anything she’d faced, except Benny. 

She thought she finally understood how people had seen her at first when she played Georgi Girev. He was a prodigy, similar to her, and after what felt like a lifetime playing people older than her, it was so unusual to be playing someone younger. He was only thirteen; Beth felt like she could barely remember being thirteen. Georgi was a good player, and with time Beth thought he’d be a serious threat. Well, a more serious threat. She really struggled in her game, and the win felt cheapened by the distracting tactic she’d adopted. They both knew that she wouldn’t have won without it, but she might not have lost either. 

The mood of the trip seems to darken after that, and not just for Beth. Manuel had told Alma that he had to leave, and Alma spent days in bed. Beth had joined her for some of it - she didn’t feel capable of facing the world after her almost disastrous game. Alma was ill. It was probably just a fever, she insisted. Too much time spent out in the sun, just sunstroke. Beth didn’t know what to do, except order room service so they could eat. Neither of them were up to finding a restaurant. They had a glum meal before tucking themselves back into the bed so Beth would be rested for her game against Vasily Borgov the next morning.

She was off balance from the very beginning. It felt like every move she made was the wrong one and there was nothing she could do to stop herself from making it. She felt like crying as she strode into their hotel room. The curtains were shut still, and Alma was still in bed. Beth knew she was sicker than she had told her, so felt for her temperature. Alma was stone cold, and Beth recoiled. She took a better look, and didn’t see her chest rising and falling in sleep; couldn’t her hear mother snuffling the way she did when she’d been asleep for a while. Alma was undeniably dead and Beth felt her whole world fall apart in a way it never had before.

The manager of the hotel was called into the whole mess. Beth felt useless when he asked her about the flights and post-mortems and funeral homes back in America. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know who to call. Beth felt like she’d never even known her mother; who was she friends with? Did she have any siblings? Where did she want to be buried? Did she even want to be buried, or would she rather be cremated? The manager seemed to be able to see the thoughts flying around her head, and sympathetically reminded her that it didn’t have to be done now, and that the hotel would help where they could.

He gave her the number of a funeral home so Alma’s body could be taken away, and stored until she could be transported back home. Beth remembered suddenly, that Mr Wheatley would probably know all the answers she was desperately trying to find out. Their phone call didn’t go well, but it gave Beth what she needed, and that was all she needed from him.

She organised the funeral and hated every second of it. Beth felt like she’d spent hours upon hours planning it, but the actual funeral barely seemed to last a minute. Beth resolved that she would never plan a funeral again. She never wanted to hear about a funeral again, and it was lucky that she didn’t have any friends whose funeral she would go to. 

The months after her mother’s burial were the most difficult of Beth’s life. She was lost, and not even chess could help her this time. She fell deep into drinking and smoking and taking pills until the world was a warm haze where she didn’t have to think about anything. She knew it wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t helping her but every time she resolved that tomorrow she wouldn’t drink, or that she’d take a break from the pills, she failed. She thought about maybe reaching out to someone for help, but who could she reach out to?

She didn’t have any friends or family. The only things she had were chess and the pills and the drinks. Beth had never felt more isolated from the world than she did after another bender, ending up in bed at 4am with the room spinning. Beth resolved that this time would be the last. Even as she thought that, she remembered what must have been hundreds of times she’d said that before. She wouldn’t - couldn’t - change.

It was all she’d known since she was a kid. First the pills in the orphanage, and later when Alma would drink. It was all she had.


End file.
